Poker Basics

Every action in poker revolves around betting. It is how you build pots, represent hands, extract value, and protect your equity. Without a clear understanding of the betting rules, you are navigating the game blind. […]

If you have spent any serious time playing online poker, you have probably made a missclick at some point. I know I have. Even the most focused players occasionally click the wrong button, especially when […]

Texas Hold’em tournaments are the most exciting format in the game, and also the most unforgiving. I have coached thousands of tournament players over the years, and the same costly errors come up again and […]

Poker chips come in standard colors that are recognized in casinos around the world. Whether you walk into a poker room in Las Vegas, a cardroom in Europe, or sit down at a friend’s home […]

Cash game poker is the most unforgiving format in poker. Unlike tournaments, there is no rebuy period to absorb mistakes. Every bad decision costs you real money. In my experience coaching thousands of players, the […]

Poker is the name of an entire family of card games. Texas Hold’em is one specific game within that family. The two terms are not synonyms, even though most recreational players use them as if […]

Spin and Go poker tournaments are three-player hyper-turbo sit-and-gos with a randomly determined prize pool that can multiply your buy-in anywhere from 2x to thousands of times its value. I have studied this format extensively […]

Rake in poker is the commission the house takes from every cash game pot or tournament buy-in, typically ranging from 2.5% to 10% of the pot in cash games, capped at a preset maximum. It […]

You do participate in the PokerCoaching Discord server, don’t you? If not, you’re missing out on an excellent poker learning community. Maybe your thing is tournaments – we’ve got a channel just for you. If […]

A kicker in poker is a side card that does not determine the rank of your hand but breaks the tie when two players have the same hand. In Texas Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha, […]

Ghosting in Texas Hold’em Poker is a form of cheating that occurs when a more skilled player takes over another player’s account during a tournament or coaches a player through hands in real time while […]

An ante in poker is a mandatory bet posted by every player at the table before the cards are dealt, separate from the blinds. Unlike the small blind and big blind, which only two players […]

A c-bet in poker is a flop bet made by the preflop aggressor, regardless of whether the flop improved their hand. The name comes from the idea that you are continuing the aggression you showed […]

Mystery bounty poker tournaments award a random cash prize every time you eliminate an opponent during the bounty phase, with prizes ranging from a fraction of the buy-in to amounts worth thousands of times what […]

Poker combinations, also called combos, are the exact number of different ways a specific starting hand can be made from a 52-card deck. Every pocket pair has 6 possible combinations. Every suited hand has 4. […]

VPIP stands for voluntarily put $ in pot, and it measures the percentage of hands in which a player voluntarily enters the pot before the flop. VPIP is the most important stat in any HUD, […]

PFR stands for pre-flop raise, and it measures the percentage of hands in which a player raises before the flop. Of all the poker stats available in a poker HUD, PFR is the one I […]

The squeeze play in poker is a re-raise (3-bet) made after one player raises and at least one other player calls. The squeeze strategy exploits the “sandwich effect”: the original raiser now faces pressure from […]

Crazy poker games are alternative poker variants specifically designed to create more action, wilder hands, and memorable moments than standard Texas Hold’em or Omaha. They include games like Irish Poker, Badugi, Pineapple, Short Deck Poker, […]

Poker HUD stats are numerical measurements of your opponents’ tendencies, displayed in real time over the table by tracking software, and they are one of the most powerful weapons available to online poker players. The […]

A poker straddle is a voluntary blind bet placed before the cards are dealt, typically by the player to the left of the big blind, for twice the big blind. It acts as a third […]